This should get some good discussion / denial!
652 thoughts on “Evolving Wind Turbine Blades”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Stupid materialist. His position can’t explain OOT.
keiths,
Or wind!
Wow – splash screen is still live http://www.overwhelmingevidence.com/
Fascinating. “Survivors survive, it’s a tautology”. Yet here it is, producing wind turbine blades of superior efficiency.
Actually any vertical wind turbine architecture such as the one in the GA is not the most efficient as a matter of principle since it is a verticle turbine.
The most theoretically efficient are Horizontal wind turbines in terms of mechanical efficiency of generating electricity. This shows the GA will preclude discovery of the most efficient solution given even infinite time and chance. It will be stuck in a fitness peak.
It highlights the fact Natural Selection actually prevents transitionals (from vertical to horizontal, or vice versa) from being discovered, it doesn’t facilitate their discovery.
There, I provided a denial. Hope it was good. 🙂
NOTES:
http://www.windpowerengineering.com/construction/vertical-axis-wind-turbines-vs-horizontal-axis-wind-turbines/
Its actually evidence against evolution, but you have to look more closely.
In his little program all he is doing is testing different shapes and seeing which is best based on efficiency. But what he should have done is mixed multiple criteria, just like in nature. So some times the one that is lightest gets picked. Sometimes the one which would cost less. Sometimes the one which is most appealing to look at. Sometimes the one that is strongest. And each time you keep mixing up the criteria, and also sometimes you just throw in luck. then see if you come up with the best design. What you will get is the worst design, because it will by necessity be a compromise of all the possible outcomes. You will never get best, and probably never even get good. Because combining the need for lightest, and also the need for strongest, or much wind efficient will usually be contradictory goals.
Plus as he showed, if you start off with one particular shape, you can never get to the one you got last time. He couldn’t get to the jellyfish, because his start was wrong. One wrong turn and you can’t go back. Just like breeding dogs. You mess with them enough and you just get sick dogs that aren’t as good as the original.
Nice job Richard, you just showed that evolution, when there is no criteria for what is best, can’t work.
That demonstrates the randomness, non teleological nature of the algo, just like evolution
There is no “best” organism in nature. We’re all compromises too.
True but irrelevant. The algorithm was not written to invent wind-turbins from scratch, it was only written to simulate the effect of wind on a “locked vertical” setup. The basic mechanism wasn’t subject to any evolution. It is entirely possible if the angle of the setup was allowed to vary, that the algorithm could eventually have tweaked the vertical into a horizontal setup and improved the propeller shapes there too.
As evolutionary biologists have been saying for a century. In fact this indicates that not only are there many valid “solutions” in phenotypical space, there are also many for random mutation to sample, to reach them.
What criteria do we use to determine if a solution is valid? Hypothetical existence?
Is there any way to say that a particular solution is invalid except nonexistance? Hypothetical nonexistence perhaps?
peace
It doesn’t go extinct before leaving descendants.
fifthmonarchyman,
Precisely. That’s why fat is good and so is skinny. Tall is good and so is short. Smart is good and so is dumb. Altruism is good and so is selfishness.
Any story can work.
Rumraket,
What kind of wind turbines do you think would result from continually changing criteria of good?
Pretty awful turbines I can guarantee you.
In the right contexts, yes. This has been proven in game theory. What’s next, you’re going to deny math too?
I do not take your guarantees to be worth anything. I think you should write the simulation and prove it instead.
A continually changing wind-turbine that adapted to the circumstances simultaneously with them changing. After all that is what selection does, it samples and tracks around the local peak in the fitness landscape. If you alter the landscape, then selection will follow.
It looks like this:
Notice how even if the landscape is constantly changing, the population follows due to selection.
How about try several fitness functions and watch populations diverge?
phoodoo,
Are you beginning to get the idea that evolution is stochastic, not deterministic?
stcordova,
Not sure about the universal applicability of this principle from this one instance. Sure there will be circumstances in which a genotype gets stuck on a fitness peak, despite higher ones being available. Then, it stops evolving in that particular dimension – at least until the wind changes. But it’s not a universal case of ‘adapt or die’. Stasis is a perfectly respectable option, a holding pattern.
There are many dimensions to be explored. The probability of them all becoming ‘stuck’ is substantially lower than that of one, exponentially diminishing with the number of those dimensions, even without the constant shift of the adaptive landscape under a species’s metaphorical feet.
Allan Miller,
Are you beginning to get the idea that without a goal of what is good, you can never build a precise organism.
Wind exists. The entire real world exists. “It” is what ultimately affects what can and cannot evolve.
phoodoo,
As long as the change was not too capricious, you would likely get turbines that were ‘good’ according to the criteria you fed them. They would be ‘awful’ measured against the criteria used in this sim, and against your judgement. But then, those criteria were not used, some other criteria were instead and naturally the sim would track them, if paths were available.
phoodoo,
Nope. When do we declare the ‘precise organism’ to have evolved? Is it a giraffe, an Ordovician bacterium, a trilobite, Australopithecus? Which of those is good? Which was a goal, and how do their descendants feel about it? Is one gooder than another?
In biology, nothing stays the same. Every human carries approximately 100 mutations, about 10 percent of which will be in known functional code.
Every one of these opens up a new dimension in functional space. See Wagner, Arrival of the Fittest.
There can be apparent stasis, little or no obvious change in morphology, but a population the size of the human population can carry every possible non-fatal allele. Each of which is a potential bridge to adaptation in the event of environmental change.
Fixation is a mathematical construct. Very few loci are without alleles, and spots where variation is usually detrimental can be opened up by mutations at other sites.
What is a “precise organism” anyway? Is it better than an accurate one?
Evolution will only work if the pace of change in the environment is slow compared to the speed of procreation. If the environment changes much faster than new generations appear, you get what is called a ‘catastrophe’ and the likely result is extinction. See also ‘Asteroid impact’.
fG
In biology, the more finely tuned, the more susceptible to extinction. Sloppy generalists rule on the scale of eons. Bacteria are the mode of life.
This is a good example of micro-evolution and who denies this?
No new function was evolved and no secondary consequences of the design were taken into account. Living systems are never as simple as this example.
A few things to consider:
What effect do the various shapes have on bearing stresses or the loading of the support? What about local fatigue stresses on the blades? Even with a seemingly simple change in form there are many other factors to consider.
(OT note:
I have not replied to questions on the thread “Beating a dead horse” as it was going off topic and the thread may have passed its sell by date, but if anyone really wants an answer to a question they have asked me, feel free to ask again.)
To survive you don’t need a precise organism. You only need one that is good enough to outcompete its neighbors.
CharlieM,
phoodoo.
It’s pretty hard to model biology. What with it being all but impossible to model protein folding and all.
Now when someone in the ID movement comes up with an actual sequence of mutational changes in actual evolutionary history that could not happen via known mutational processes, I’ll listen.
Pathetic detail or STFU.
so if “a goal of what is good” is always needed, what’s your take?
Black or white? Which one is the good race and which one is bad?
What’s God’s privileged race?
Intelligent Design evolution in action as this is another example of directed evolution.
Thank you
What is of interest here is that a genetic algorithm resulted in an improved turbine blade, without the details of the goal being in any way stored in the algorithm code. That could happen because the blades were tested in a simulated physics.
Those who say that genetic algorithms are not relevant to discussions of evolution say repeatedly that this is because the final goal must be stored in the algorithm. Not just the selection criterion, but the details of the solution arrived at. The information that is arrived at must already be there, we are repeatedly told.
This example disproves that assertion.
CharlieM,
phoodoo and Frankie
A pedant.
I don’t deny microevolution. I don’t deny macroevolution. Obviously Allan Miller has personal issues
Joe Felsenstein,
Joe, The program would have never created the blades if it wasn’t designed to do so. The specifications for the blades is part of the program. And the program directs all selected offspring towards that specification.
GAs have nothing to do with undirected evolution, ie natural selection, drift and neutral changes
As does the evolved digital tone discriminator circuit, which is not easily understood or analyzed, even after it exists. Which — though implemented in digital logic — takes advantage of the particular timings and latencies of the circuit elements. Even elements not utilized in the logic operations.
Just addressing the charge that simulated evolution can’t step outside the parameters programmed by the human designers.
petrushka,
Except it doesn’t address that charge at all and you have no idea if the program stepped outside the parameters programmed by the human designers.
Genetic algorithms are very relevant to the topic of evolution. They demonstrate the power of directed evolution.
Maybe someday someone will figure out how to model undirected evolution- just don’t hold your breath waiting
Not true at all. All the program does is to produce random variations and apply selection based on fitness, using the physics simulation to get a performance figure. If the specification was in the program, it would converge to the same specification from any starting point, did you miss Prof. Felsenstein post?
In the Real World, biological evolution is indeed directed, by environmental constraints. You could consider the environment to be the Designer. You don’t have to specify anything about the blades, but you DO need to specify an environment that rewards ANY effective blade, and the more effective, the more rewarded.
You could argue, very persuasively, that the environment people are born into and grow up within, rewards characteristics like intelligence, determination, ability to get along, etc. But you’d have a hard time finding these “specifications” built into the world around you.
Flint,
Evolution is not directed. Natural selection is not a directing force. Natural selection is even a selecting force as it is eliminative. Eliminating is not the same as selecting. Only selection can get the blades if that is what the program warrants.
There isn’t any evidence for the environment can design wrt biology
dazz,
Random variations of what? How does it know what to select and actively search for?
It would be interesting, for a change of pace, to have a discussion with an IDist who actually understands evolution. Behe comes closest, but he is fixated on the necessity of bridging detrimental mutations. Kariosfocus minus most of the belligerence.
petrushka,
It would be interesting, for a change of pace, to have a discussion with an layman evo who actually understands evolution. No one here comes close.
I bet I know more about evolution than petrushka does (and Flint- well all evo regulars posting here.)
I’m not trying to be belligerent here, but I am relating what evolutionists themselves have said that has inclined me to remain a creationist.
Two of the most influential essays to me personally were written by an evolutionist was Stanley Salthe’s :
http://www.nbi.dk/natphil/salthe/Critique_of_Natural_Select_.pdf
and Lewontin Santa Fe 2003:
http://www.santafe.edu/media/bulletin_pdf/winter2003v18n1.pdf
The Lewontin Santa Fe 2003 paper was more influential in that it was the basis of Salthe’s viewpoints.
Lewontin pointed out what he called the Morphospace problem — why are there only limited implementations of possible ways to make creatures. For example, why aren’t there large numbers of leaf eating birds? It would seem that such a variant would be logically superior to a bird that eats meat (or say a humming bird that eats nectar).
This problem of functional extravagance like the peacock’s tail and the problem such tails posed for Darwin shows itself again. Why would a species that operates via sexual selection for extravagance not be selected against by natural selection? In fact, given the high extinction rate of birds, it would seem natural selection is indeed destroying such functionally complex creatures in our present day, even though each species of birds are adapted to their particular niche in morphospace (i.e. meat eating flying birds).
Though superficially it looks plausible for humans and other primates to share a common ancestor, I do find the transition from prokaryote to eukaryote especially bothersome personally. A baceterial population clearly can be seen to fine tune to the presence of antibiotics, but a leap in complexity for a bacterium like creature to evolve spliceosomal introns and histones seems again like changing the wind turbines from the horizontal architecture to a vertical one. A gradual change where each step is favoured, seems precluded as a matter of prinicple. Lynch argues in great detail in his Genome Architecture book that many features of Eukaryotic genomes must have emerged without the influence of selection as a matter of principle.
Like the wind turbine example, we clearly see bacteria have one mode of evolution (optimization of antibiotic resistance ), but never in the lab or field a mode change via small steps like a turbine going from vertical to horizontal (or vice versa) which I liken to bacteria becoming like a eukaryote or a eukaryote becoming like a bacteria.
I could go on in mentioning taxonomically restricted life critical features, like say the vertebrate liver. We see features that just seem to poof out of nowhere.
If I were an evolutionist, I’d probably be leaning on the side of self-organization happening in modes mostly free of selection.